THOUGHTS ON BELIEF AND EVIDENCE. 241 



competent judges, before being put forth for their instruction. But 

 what we require now to know is, in what consists the belief, and how 

 was it caused of those who first delivered them to the world as truths, 

 and of all those inquirers who accept them as such from knowledge 

 of the evidence. To say that they are truths, is to say that, taking 

 any particular case of an object or idea, properly included as one of 

 those to which the term forming the subject is applied, it would be 

 found to possess the qualities, or, in certain circumstances, to pass 

 through the changes, or otherwise to manifest the relations expressed 

 by the predicate. Now it is clear that, if the general proposition 

 were founded on the actual personal experience by our own sensations 

 of every possible case coming under it, so that each instance of the 

 application of the general statement must be one, or the exact copy 

 of one of the instances upon which it was founded, then general 

 truths must be of comparatively narrow application and limited use 

 in economising labour or extending knowledge. Their great value 

 consists in the general proposition, rule, or natural law covering a 

 much greater number of cases than have been actually examined or 

 perceived by the senses, and yet deserving our confidence. We 

 assume, as sufficiently established by every one's experience, that 

 what is found to be true in one instance will be true in all similar 

 instances ; that is, we assume the uniformity of the laws of nature, 

 consequently that it is only necessary to show that a certain proposition 

 expresses a natural law, in order that it may be confidently applied to 

 every single case really falling within the rule. But the assertion of 

 the uniformity of the Ihws of nature is only giving the form of a 

 general proposition to the feeling of the mind, resulting from various 

 and continued observation. We know nothing of laws of nature, as 

 separately existing powers, exerting any controlling force ; but we 

 ?ecognise them as expressions of the regularity with which effects are 

 Been to follow causes, and, finding this regularity to prevail to such 

 an extent in respect to cases of very different kinds, we are prepared 

 not only to admit separately different laws as making part of the 

 government of the world, but to adopt the general principle that the 

 universe is regulated by consta.it laws, the knowledge of which is the 

 best guide, on all matters to which they apply, for those who dwell 

 in it : and this confidence in uniformity enables us, from a few good 

 observations, to lay down a rule as to what may always be expected. 

 Where the proposition expresses what will happen to a given svtb* 



